Posted on 10/28/2005 7:08:15 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
HARRISBURG It was surely one of the most anticipated moments in the history of federal jurisprudence, the appearance, finally, of former Dover Area School Board member Bill Buckingham at the Dover Panda Trial. And it did not disappoint. It was, in the truest sense of the word, unbelievable.
Really.
Unbelievable.
At the onset of his stay on the witness stand, Buckingham raised his right hand and swore, or affirmed, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Then, for the record, he stated his name.
"William Buckingham."
By the time he left the stand, six hours later, I almost expected the judge to ask him for a photo ID to make sure he was indeed William Buckingham.
A telling moment came when he was asked about how the Dover Area High School had acquired 60 copies of the book "Of Pandas and People," a brilliantly dumb book that promotes the idea of intelligent design.
In a deposition given in January, he said he didn't know how the district got the books. He said he didn't know who donated the books. He said he didn't ask because he didn't want to know. He said he didn't know who donated the money to buy the books.
So, during his testimony Thursday, Steve Harvey, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, asked Buckingham about the books and how the money was raised to buy them. He specifically asked Buckingham whether he raised the money at his church.
He said he hadn't.
Then, he said he had.
Then, he said he hadn't.
He said he stood before the congregation one Sunday morning and said "there was a need" for money to buy "Of Pandas and People" and if anyone wanted to give, they could.
"But I didn't ask anyone for money," he said.
Harvey asked him whether he took up a collection at his church, Harmony Grove Community Church.
"Not as such," Buckingham said.
So the lawyer asked him whether he got in front of the congregation and asked for donations.
"I didn't," Buckingham said.
He paused.
"I'm sorry, I did say that, but there was more to it," he said.
Anyway, he collected the money wherever it came from and then he wrote a check for $850 to Donald Bonsell, father of then-school board President Alan Bonsell.
But previously, when asked by the lawyer about who donated the books, he said he didn't know.
"Mr. Buckingham, you lied to me at your deposition ... isn't that true?" Harvey asked.
"How so?" Buckingham responded.
It went on for a while before Judge John E. Jones III told Harvey to move on.
"You made your point very effectively," the judge said.
Earlier, Harvey had made an even more effective point.
Buckingham said he never read about his adventures on the school board in the newspapers and never talked to anyone about them. He also said he never mentioned creationism at school board meetings or in the press or anywhere, for that matter.
So at the time the board was talking about creationism, Buckingham granted an interview to a Fox 43 news reporter. I guess he forgot about that new-fangled invention, videotape.
On the tape, which you can see at http://www.ydr.com/mmedia/multi/528, Buckingham, wearing the same lapel pin he wore in court Thursday, said he wanted to balance evolution in the classroom with something else, "such as creationism."
Oops.
He said that the reporter "ambushed" him and that he was "like a deer in the headlights of a car" and that the newspapers were all reporting that he and the board were talking about creationism and that he thought to himself, "Don't say creationism."
Double oops.
It was like he had a Homer Simpson moment. He was thinking "Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism." And then he opens his yap and says "creationism."
D'oh!
And to compound the prevarication, he said he was thinking about something the newspapers reported something he didn't read or talk to anybody about.
It went on like that all day. He'd say he voted for buying a new biology book. Then, he said he voted against it. He said he thought intelligent design was a scientific theory. But he said he didn't know what intelligent design was. He said he wasn't the force behind the board adopting intelligent design and then, confronted with what he said, under oath, previously, he'd say maybe he was.
He said a lot of things, and then he'd say a lot of things that weren't exactly what he had said to begin with.
And then, he attributed his spotty, selective and just plain weird memory to his OxyContin addiction.
Unbelievable.
But those on the other side probably think he did well...
Well, we've seen denial taken to an extreme by the IDers recently, but even they can't possibly believe that admitting you perjured yourself, and blaming it on drugs, looks good.
Quite so. Sometimes the unvarnished truth is best kept to oneself, though, or saved for appropriate circumstances. I once told a supervisor of mine precisely what I thought of him and his managerial/professional abilities. I did this on the way out the door, needless to say ;)
Some people are beyond help and some situations are beyond rescue. There comes a time to stop taking the money for supposedly doing what you know can't be done.
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Darn it - you almost owe me a new keyboard for that. Reading the article I had to choose whether to choke and die on the coke I was drinking, or spit it out on the keyboard to free the airways for laughter. Mike Argento is just hilarious :)
The "clean hands," this-is-not-about-religion ID people are facing a dilemma. (Never mind the evidence of all their own past statements potentially puts them in Buckingham's shoes.) The people they're firing up are the same people who thirty years ago were buying The Genesis Flood. It's the YEC crowd.
And all the "scientific" IDers can do is fire them up, get them charging into the guns, pull out, and watch them lose.
The battle is not between science and Christianity. The battle is between science and Bible-idolatry.
"The battle is not between science and Christianity. "
You're right, of course. It's just that some of the YEC folks seem to think that their beliefs are the only true beliefs. Odd, that.
To paraphrase the 12 yr old AOLer...OMG! WTF? LOL!!
Why odd? Otherwise there'd be no denominations, just atheists and theists. Would that be an improvement?
Good observation! These people have gone from worshipping God to worshipping the Bible! That kind of worship is something even the Bible warns against. They are worshipping the book, not what's in it and it shows by their actions.
The court will decide for the plaintiffs, not because of intelligent design per se, but because of the revival tents and venomous snakes that came along with it.
Yes, good point, unfortunately. That would mean we'd have to fight the battle again, possibly where the other side is better prepared.
On the other hand, the MSM will surely represent it as a defeat for intelligent design, and that may dissuade other districts from trying it.
OK. Larry has been presented. When do we get to see Moe and Curly Joe?
This sounds like a set up by DI to make sure ID doesn't get taught in school until they can 'refine' their program.
Sorry, actually it sounds like a set up by the keystone cops.
Sorry again. The DI is run by keystone cops.
With most of the Dover threads, there's lots of input by Creationist/IDers. Where are they today? Or is Friday their new Sabbath day?
Why, is there something wrong with the old one?
It's fun to quote mine
I think our celebration is premature. Based on this testimony, and other testimony to come, the judge can issue a very narrow ruling that the Dover school board intended to promote creationism. He does not have to mention ID in his ruling at all. I'm betting on this.
DI has some lawyers who are not brain dead and don't want to be associated with a train wreck.
The other thread documenting their internal squabble indicates they are close to self destruction.
Time for the snake to shed the ID skin and move on to Intelligent Evolution.
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